Ranked: every film by Bill Condon, from Twilight and Beauty and the Beast to The Good Liar

American director’s films have grossed US$3 billion worldwide, and manage to be both commercial and personal. He likes to tell stories of outsiders

He won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for Gods and Monsters in 1999

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Helen Mirren (left) and Ian McKellen share the screen for the first time in their careers in The Good Liar.

Published: 3:01am, 27 Nov 2019Updated: 5:44pm, 27 Nov 2019

The road to success has been a rocky one for Academy Award-winning writer-director Bill Condon.

His films have grossed US$3 billion worldwide, and he has worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, and with frequent collaborators such as composer Carter Burwell and editor Virginia Katz. Gravitating towards stories of outsiders and the marginalised, his body of work succeeds in being commercial, yet also personal, and highly eclectic.

With the release this month of The Good Liar , starring Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen, we look back at Condon’s tempestuous career, and rank his 11 feature films from worst to best.

11. Sister, Sister (1987)

Despite the star quality of 1980s mainstays Eric Stoltz and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Condon’s debut feature was an unmitigated disaster.

Leigh plays an emotionally unhinged young woman who runs a small hotel in the Louisiana swamps with her overbearing elder sister (Judith Ivey). The arrival of Stoltz’s handsome political aide stirs up long-dormant family secrets in this steamy, yet largely incoherent, Southern noir.